I track people who are disrupting the world of mobile technology. Non-conformists, innovators and agitators are this blog's unsung heroes, from entrepreneurs to scientists, to rebellious hackers. I'm the author of "We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous and the Global Cyber Insurgency", (Little Brown, 2012) which The New York Times called a "lively, startling book that reads as 'The Social Network' for group hackers." I recently relocated to Forbes' San Francisco office, and was previously Forbes' London bureau chief from 2008-12, interviewing British billionaires like Philip Green and controversial figures like Mohammed Al Fayed; I wrote last year's billionaires cover story on Russia's Yuri Milner, and have broken stories like the Facebook-Spotify partnership in 2011. Before all this I had stints at the BBC and as a radio journalist. You can watch me on 'The Daily Show' here. If you have a story idea or tip, e-mail me at polson@forbes.com or follow me on Twitter: parmy.

Who Might Unseat Apple And Samsung As Handset Kings?

Here’s a fun statistic: at least eight multinational companies compete for the big business of making mobile devices.

How many make all the profit? Two.

So positioned is Samsung and Apple. Thanks to innovative products, a tight grip on supply chains and good relationships with carriers, among other reasons, Apple has 69% share of all operating profit among the planet’s leading device makers, while Samsung has 34%, according to a research note today from Canaccord Genuity. (See chart above.)

All other competitors barely get a sliver of this profit pie. Nokia, Google-owned Motorola and Sony operated at a loss in 2012, while BlackBerry (formerly Research in Motion), LG and HTC barely broke even.

Canaccord’s Michael Walkley expects the industry to continue looking this way through the beginning of this year and beyond. Samsung might gain a little on Apple after releasing its Galaxy S4, likely in March, and Apple might grow its own profit share if it ever releases a cheaper iPhone.

Though a cheaper iPhone aimed at emerging markets might put a dent in Apple’s margins, it would probably still grow their absolute share of industry profits, says Walkley. “They’d be taking profits from segments they haven’t entered yet.”

Apple’s mobile device business, its biggest contributor to group profits, already boasted a 41%-operating margin for 2012. Samsung’s operating margin stands at 21%, still miles ahead of their closest margin competitor, HTC at 6%.

You almost get the feeling Apple and Samsung could stay up there forever. But they won’t, because industry leaders come and go. Back in 2008, it was Nokia and Research in Motion gobbling up the profits. Today it is Samsung and Apple. Who will it be tomorrow?

“The wild card out there would be somebody new, like an Amazon who has been disruptive to other hardware makers by being willing to sell tablets to break even,” said Walkley. “Google with Motorola may also be getting more serious about making proprietary devices.”

It will be new players who come to rule this market, not previously dominant names like Nokia or RIM, he contends. People were fascinated to watch the launch of BlackBerry 10 last week, and to track the fortunes of Windows Phone, but Walkley is skeptical that either mobile platform will crack the dominance of Apple’s iOS or Android. Of the 20 best-selling Android phones, he adds, 14 of them are made by Samsung.

And while a gutsy company like Huawei has recently climbed the ranks to become the world’s third-biggest handset maker by shipments, it probably won’t be a hardware company like this one either. “Making a good hardware device is tough. You have to build a brand and do marketing. What does [Huawei] offer that’s different? It’s pure hardware.”

“In that scenario,” he said, “someone who’s going to be taking the profits is someone who can really transform the market with a must-have device because of content. Not some hardware guy or a RIM comeback.”

“It’s all about software services and ecosystem,” Walkley added. “Today you need great hardware to make it run and you need software to differentiate.”

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Yawn. This is old news, Huawei is DOA. Content? What a joke, how many flashlight apps do you need? Z10 is the best phone on the market, bar none. It’s faster, more secure, has a reasonable app selection, can split business/personal data, can share screens with others, etc….Samsung is gonna rape Apple and whatever is left will be taken by BBRY.

Good catch – it adds up to 103% because Apple/Samsung’s competitors, like Nokia and Motorola, actually lost money in 2012. So that gave the dominant players more than 100% of combined industry profits. See the chart above for more numbers.

Sorry, this doesn’t make any sense to me. A “profit” is, by definition, a financial gain. So a combined industry profit should simply be the sum of all the profits. If some companies didn’t make any profits, they contribute ZERO to the overall profit.

But I’m an engineer – perhaps in financial circles a profit can be negative :-}

The thing is, any prediction regarding this is very difficult, if not impossible, to make. People tend to like to stick with similar devices as long as the phones bring them a high enough level of satisfaction. Many iPhone users prefer to stay with iPhone because that is what they are comfortable with. Though some do switch due to curiosity or discontent, I believe the majority do stick with the brands they have. There is one exception: If a new brand comes along that is just mind boggling with their phone’s features. Consumers will flock to that to increase their satisfaction. Or will they? Another thing we must take into consideration is the amount of money already invested into one company by the users. For example, apps. If I have already bought $100+ of apps on iTunes, why switch phones and lose this? Once again, this new phone would have to be good enough to convince consumers to overcome these losses. Could it be done? Yes. Will it in the near future? I doubt it. I do not believe any company has the ability to release a phone like this, and if they could, it would probably be Samsung or Apple anyways.

It has already just happened with 50% of BB10 purchases coming from iPhone users and other Android OS products. All sales statistics and market share statistics are based on past quarterly sales. Watch carefully how the balance slides in a totally different direction. Only those who didn’t pay attention or simply don’t understand what QNX is all about will be left staring into headlights. It could have been any other company aquiring QNX and thinking of developing a mobile OS with it but fact remains it’s BlackBerry. I bet if a company from the U.S. had been the one launching BB10, we wouldn’t have read any bashing or badly researched statements.

“In that scenario,” he said, “someone who’s going to be taking the profits is someone who can really transform the market with a must-have device because of content. Not some hardware guy or a RIM comeback.”

“It’s all about software services and ecosystem,” Walkley added. “Today you need great hardware to make it run and you need software to differentiate.”

Why can’t BlackBerry do this. Its smartphone is very different. Secure, great for communications. Handles data consumption as well as the other and its OS is designed to run in so many different types of mobile machines. Are the others OS designed to run on various mobile machines in the upcoming M2M explosion?

Blackberry’s devices are different and may run well, but they lack the shiny features that truly appeal to most consumers. These features may not be necessary and may not be worthwhile, but they will drive consumers to actually want to move away from their comfort of their own current devices. This is the key when you are a company that is not already on the top of the industry: Pack revolutionary new features into the phone to get the users away from the already huge companies like Apple and Samsung.